It was one of my favourite traits in the game. I really enjoyed the overly edgy lines from the trait.
And killing zombies and other abominations like a badass post-apocalyptic warrior is just fun and getting a morale boost from it is only natural.
Why would you delete something good and fun like this from the game? Please bring it back.
You can read the two justifications here yourself. While I have a generally negative opinion towards some weird effort to remove “Edgy Roleplay”, the argument that it doesn’t meaningfully contribute to the game to make it a straight reward with no downsides for something the player is always and constantly doing holds up. It also has the side problem of forcing anyone who does want a character who gets this reward to have their character utter edgy lines that might otherwise conflict.
As a player, sure, but CDDA characters aren’t enjoying this experience from behind a keyboard like us. Normal Humans are not going to feel happiness when they’re forced to fight for their life against inhuman monsters to avoid starving to death. Its a pop culture perception of bloodthirst to think otherwise.
Fundamentally, trying to fix it as some representation of bloodthirsty behavior would need to be reworked into a full mechanic with more depth and representation of that archetype than just kill and be happy, which nobody has seemingly had the interest in implementing, while also not putting a bad taste in peoples mouth for adding ‘weird shit’ to the game.
However, to some people the cheesy, edgy roleplay is a fun thing. Just look at Rimworld and all the human skin wearing organ harvesting maniacs as a prime example. Let people enjoy edgy and retarded things.
If you have cleared out an area and are chilling at your base, grinding your skills, the trait actually becomes a negative thing as you will need to constantly be seeking new fights. Also, early on when your character is weak and unskilled every fight can be deadly and the trait forces you to fight frequently to keep your mood in check. And if you are recovering from wounds or disease you will have to stomach the additional mood debuff. And the trait used to cost 2 points.
I think if I could actually be the badass zombie killer in real life and bash in the zombies skulls left and right with a large club/hammer and slowly clear out the areas to make them safe and inhabitable again, I would enjoy that a lot more than just playing the game on my computer.
Most traits represent abnormalities, positive or negative. Some other traits include being 2,50 meters tall, 1 meter tall, albino, enjoying pain, seeing at night, being illiterate, being mentally incapable of eating without a chair and table, your knees not having joints or hating vegetables or meat. The perfectly average human would only be a 8 strength, 8 dex, 8 perception and 8 int office worker with no positive or negative traits.
Compromise: If you are really that scared of people doing “edgy serial killer roleplay”, only give the mood buff from killing zombies, mutants, bandits and other hostile threats and not other survivours or peaceful animals and maybe increase the mood penalty from not killing stuff so the trait is “less overpowered” and has more negative consequences too.